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llaman @raras BafrnNr @tripa THOMAS A. KELLY, 'OF WEYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS.

LAST.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 363,069, dated May 17. 1.887.

Application filed March 16, 1887. Serial No. 231,089. (No model.)

To @ZZ whom, t may concern:

Beit known that I, THOMAS A. KELLY, of Veymouth, in the county of Norfolk, State of Massachusetts, nave invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Lasts, of which the following is a description sufficiently full,clear, and exact to enable any person skilled in the art or soience'to which said invention appertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, fornr ing part of this specification, in Which- Figure l is a bottom plan view of a boot or shoe last embodying my improvement, and Fig. 2 a vertical longitudinal section of the same.

Like letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in both the figures of the drawings.

My invention relates more especially to that class of lasts which are employed in the manufacture of machine-sewed boots or shoes and provided with metallic bottoms; and it consists in a novel construction and arrangement of parts, as hereinafter fully set forth and claimed, the object being to produce a more effective and otherwise desirable device of this character than is now in ordinary use.

ln the drawings,A represents the body, and Bthe iron bottom, of the last. The bottom, which is preferably composed of steel` is provided with holes y, to allow the leather sole to be nailed to the last iny lasting the boot or shoe in the usual manner. By constant use the nails gradually Wear away the Wood of the body ofthe last, forming holes E, and thereby preventing the nails from holding. This difficulty is sometimes partially obviated by driving wooden plugs into the holes; but these soon split or splinter and the last becomes again inoperative.

My improvement is designed to obviate this difficulty, and to that end I rim out or cut an annular groove, m, in the wood or body A, direetly under the iron bottom B. the holes E by respectively driving into them plugs of lead or other soft metal D, which spreadinto the grooves on, beneath the iron bottoni B, and thus firmly holdthe plugs in position in the last. The metal serves all the purposes of wood in retaining the nails, and, being malleable,is easily compressed, thereby causing the old nail-holes to be/flled up as often as new ones are formed, and enabling a last to be used much longer than has been heretofore possible.

In the drawings oneholey only is represented as plugged with the metal D, as this is deemed sufficient to fully illustrate my improvement.

Having thus explained my improvement, what I claim isl. A boot or shoe last comprising the body A, provided with the hole E and groove m, the metallic bottom B, having the hole y, and the metallic plug D, disposed in said hole and vextending into said groove, substantially as described.

2. The improved method of plugging or repairing a last herein described, the same consisting, essentially,in forming annular grooves in the body of the last, beneath the metallic bottom, around therespective holes produced by the lasting-nails, and driving plugs of lead or similar metal into said holes, said vplugs being expanded into the grooves and thereby retained in the holes, substantially as set forth.

THOMAS A. KELLY.

Witnesses:

O. M. SHAW, E. L. SAWYER.

I then fill. 

